NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The announcement Tuesday of the intent by Kansas Attorney General-elect Kris Kobach to appoint a man who lost to him in the primary to the top post at the Kansas Bureau of Investigation was a long time in the making.
"I reached out to Kris the night of the election and congratulated him, of course," Mattivi said. "We went to lunch not long after. The more we talked, one of the things that we found is, when it comes to criminal justice issues, there's really just not any daylight between Kris and me. He's a conservative. He's also a law and order guy. The same is true for me. He's excited about doing what we can do to bring the crime rate down. He's anxious to tackle violent crime and the fentanyl crisis. He wants to make sure that law enforcement has the support that they need. We're just completely in alignment on those issues. Over time, this just sort of fell into place."
The KBI is brought to the forefront in investigations where an outside agency is needed for additional resources, particularly in the state's smaller counties, but that's not all that they do.
"They do criminal justice record keeping," Mattivi said. "Whether it's criminal histories or sex offender registries or fingerprint databases, it's the KBI's task to maintain all of that information for the state, that's one. Secondly, they have a laboratory, that's forensic examination and analysis. Whether it's a DUI or a drug case, fingerprints, DNA, firearm and tool mark analysis. There's a unit of the KBI that does that kind of work. Oftentimes, when you're investigating complex criminal organizations, some of the most valuable information that you gather, isn't gathered by an agent. It's gathered by an analyst. The KBI has a division devoted to criminal intelligence analysis. Then, finally, they have the investigations division."
Mattivi will be looking at the KBI from the perspective of a prosecutor, and he believes that has value.
A prosecutor is sort of the end user of all of those products created by the KBI," Mattivi said. "The criminal history information. That's something a prosecutor uses in making a charging decision. The forensic lab, over the course of my career, I can't even count the number of times I put a KBI chemist or analyst on the stand to talk about DNA evidence or fingerprint evidence. The criminal intelligence analysis? Again, that's some of the most important information that's gathered for a prosecutor. Then, finally, the agents. I had KBI agents testify in so many of my cases over the years."
Mattivi is subject to Kansas Senate confirmation, which will be scheduled after the session gets started in January.